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Avian Radar Research Aids in Aviation Safety

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS081021-16
Release Date: 10/21/2008 4:25:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tucker M. Yates, Fleet Public Affairs Center, Det. Northwest

OAK HARBOR, Wash. (NNS) -- A field exercise Sept. 26-28 on Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island's Ault Field tested the operability of avian radars.

The three-phase Integration Validation of Avian Radar (IVAR) project, tests the field's two radars, both modified Furuno 2255 marine radars, in their ability to detect birds and determine their habits to increase airfield safety and decrease the probability of a bird- aircraft strike hazard.

"We're here to validate that these radars can be used to see birds," said Siddartha Majumdar, manager of Connectivity and Technical Services for the Center of Excellence for Airport Technology at the University of Illinois. "The radar itself is just marine radar someone would buy for their boat, so, we have to prove it can be used for this."

The two radars use an array and a parabolic antenna to generate wide and narrow beams, respectively. The data received is transmitted to displays at which point, the radar team watching the displays, calls out targets to be confirmed by visual teams strategically located throughout the airfield. The data is then sent to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems San Diego for verification and compilation.

"We put this data together and submit it and we keep going with the project; we have another year of this. At the end, a final report will say what we found, were we able to validate these radar can track birds and how well it can track at different distances with different bird sizes," said Matt Klope, of the NAS Whidbey Island IVAR team. "When we prove this works, we look at how you incorporate into a naval air station and how would they use it to make that airport safer for our pilots. That's the bottom line."

Upon completion of the validation, the radar can be used to prevent aircraft mishaps in multiple ways, mainly through near-miss data accumulation and environment modification. When a near-miss event occurs, the data will be saved by the radar for later observation and analysis. When enough data is accumulated, it will help determine patterns of bird behavior in certain areas of the airfield. Once this is determined, the environment in the area will be modified to be less appealing for birds to gather.

"A near-miss is as good as a strike, in our opinion, for managing the environment. If you can have four, five or 600 of those points and use that whole data set to manage your airfield and flight planning, you're in much better shape with more data," said Klope. "We're getting it; this radar can track these events really well."

The radar can also be used in conjunction with an alarm polygon system to provide an advisory to air traffic controllers and pilots when a bird is in an area hazardous to aircraft and allow them to modify flight paths and times accordingly if possible.

NAS Whidbey Island is one of multiple military installations on which these projects are being conducted. Others include NAS Patuxent River, Md., Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C.

For more news from Naval Station Whidbey Island, visit http://www.navy.mil/local/naswhidbey/.